The Future of Aussie Gaming Is Here: PAX Aus Reveals 2026 Indie Showcase Winners, powered by Superloop!

From restoring nostalgic video game cartridges and solving noir mysteries with a police dog to building duck empires and battling through cyberpunk firewalls, the PAX Aus 2026 Indie Showcase celebrates Australia's most inventive independent game creators.

The PAX Aus Indie Showcase provides independent developers with an incredible opportunity to showcase their games to thousands of gamers, media and industry professionals. This year's winners will be exhibiting at PAX Aus 2026 (9–11 October, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre), where attendees can meet and talk to the developers and experience these exciting new titles firsthand.

This year, Superloop is proudly sponsoring the PAX Aus Indie Showcase, supporting the next generation of Australian game developers bringing bold new ideas to life.

Superloop is powering up the Aus Indie Showcase pods with better tech, bigger artworks, and more space to show off their games. Each winning team will also receive 12 months of free super fast internet and an eero 7 modem, to help them continue to shape the future of play.

“Gamers are some of the most connected and performance-conscious internet users in the country. They expect speed and low latency, and that's exactly the network Superloop has invested in delivering,” said Paul Tyler, Superloop’s CEO.

“The developers behind these games are taking big swings that push technology, creativity and connectivity further every day. They're builders, innovators and challengers by nature. Supporting the Indie Showcase is about backing the next generation of creators and showing up for a community that shares that same ambition to challenge what's possible. And we know a thing or two about challenging the status quo at Superloop.”

This year's showcase features six digital titles and six tabletop games, highlighting the incredible creativity, innovation and originality emerging from Australia's thriving indie games industry.

The six winners of the Digital PAX Aus 2026 Indie Showcase category are:

●     Cozy Game Restoration by Parasol Corp is a soothing simulator where you gently bring forgotten video game cartridges back to life. Tear packing tape, peel old stickers, lift away grime and transform dusty relics into cherished collectibles. No pressure or failure, just the quiet joy of restoring memories.

●     Key Fairy by Owl Machine is a hand-drawn, pacifist, folkloric, bullet-hell. Grapple and dance around monsters to collect their shattered stars, weave your way through twisting paths, encounter strange folk, uncover ancient magic and evade forgotten gods in this frenetic 2D action-adventure.

●     Finch & Archie by Octarine Arts is an episodic co-op noir murder mystery. Play as one half of a crime-fighting duo: the detective Jack Finch and his police dog, Archie. Use your deduction skills and sense of smell to find evidence, interrogate suspects and catch the culprit in a gritty story set in the Great Depression.

●     The Last Exterminator by Ironworks Games is a 90s action blockbuster shooter filled with over-the-top action, corny humour and explosive set-pieces. The look and feel of the game is both authentically retro and immensely accessible thanks to a custom games engine built in-house by Ironworks Games.

●     Mission Delta by Polarity Games: Fight your way up Delta Corp’s skyscraper in a co-op action roguelike shooter. As one of its escaped experiments, battle through mutants and corporate atrocities floor by floor. Fuse weapons into powerful combinations, stack upgrades and bring the whole operation crashing down.

●     A Real Life Party by Silakka is a comedy game where you play as Anton waiting for his friend Henry to arrive at his own flat warming party. You are forced to meet and endure his peculiar roommates alone: Ben smothers you with affection; Zora, paranoid, monitors your actions; and Kat simply takes joy in deceiving you. The game uses a first-person grid-based movement system where the visuals consist of photos and videos, including a novel use of POV crosscutting in its final sequence. The characters respond to the dozens of interactions across the household, with hundreds of lines of recorded dialogue. As you interact with the space and its people, you gain access to new areas of the house. The game ultimately has a linear progression in which Anton grows desperate to be saved by Henry from this social nightmare.

Aiden from Polarity Games said about being selected as a winner, "We first applied for the Indie Showcase back in 2024, when Mission Delta was still a little too early in development. We didn’t make the cut then, but after giving the game some more time to cook, we decided to give it another shot this year and were thrilled to find out that we’d been selected! It’s been a long-time dream of mine to showcase a game of my own at PAX and we can’t wait to present Mission Delta in person for the first time this October."

The six winners of the Tabletop PAX Aus 2026 Indie Showcase category are:

●     Thrive by Avant-Card Games: Cute animals. Deceptively tense. Thrive is a card game where everyone plays as an animal trying to survive in the wild by secretly choosing where to forage and how much energy to spend. Survival is not always enough. Only the player who gathers the most valuable resources will Thrive! Designed to play quickly (15 mins) so that more rounds complete and mind games evolve. Suitable for most ages (6+) and group sizes (2-4 with a single copy). Part of an Expandalone™ series where every release is both playable on their own and can be seamlessly combined with any other Thrive scenario. Pick your favourite locations, animals, and mechanics to create a new wild experience every time!

●     Aqueducks by Corkscrew Games is the only roman and duck themed deck-builder in history. It is the crux of the Roman Eggpublic and the Pondifex has tasked the players with establishing a new city to lead the ducks of Rome into a new age. Players have the choice to build their duck-themed city how they best see fit to earn the favour of the Pondifex. Players will develop a productive economy to turn their unique starting riverside village into a prestigious metropolis. They can choose to build a thriving city of trade or may attempt to awe the world with their military might. They may build luxurious urban centres or seek to please the gods with marvellous monuments. Through building a 3D tableau, players are given a novel, tactile approach to immerse themselves in the world of the Roman Eggpublic. Although it has a simple and charming theme, Aqueducks offers a depth of strategic choice that even the most experienced gamers will find challenging.

●     Deathbed by Devil Juice: The Old King is on his deathbed. Each day, each kingdom sends a representative to perform a eulogy. Through strategic timing and political manipulation your kingdom could hold the most influence when The King finally passes! Each player has an identical starting hand of cards - each day they must secretly play cards to the center of the table. When The King passes the player with the most influence still left in their hand takes the throne. Deathbed is a symmetrical hand management card game with simultaneous selection, card tracking and player prediction mechanics. Players all have identical starting hands of cards and must secretly choose a card to play each round. Once chosen, cards are revealed and any matching cards clash are discarded. Afterwards, cards are resolved from lowest to highest. As players are trying to retain the most value in hand by the end of the game, and higher value cards have higher impact effects, there's a balancing game of playing the right cards at the right time.

●     Drago's Dreamland by Emily Dallwitz: The Aim: leave home, collect 20 wisdom points, return home. Players are rainbow pixies who travel the board, hear stories, trade items, collect wisdom points and interact with the mythical, quirky characters. The history and back story of the land progresses through the levels. There are variations in styles of play to suit different children (fast, drama or quiz). It's an imaginative adventure, with original story telling and artwork throughout. Artist, teacher and mum, Emily Dallwitz, has just launched the game after 30 years of development.

●     Caught in the Rain by The Ravensridge Emporium is a solo or GM-less TTRPG about mysteries for any genre. As an investigator, professional or otherwise, uncover the truth as you play through scenes, discover clues and manage the ever-increasing danger and threats that emerge.

●     Wireburn by Wireburnthegame is a fast-paced, cutthroat cyberpunk card game for 1 to 6 players. Deploy data packets to three docks. Match the math, hijack colours and overload the system. Push stacks to their absolute limit to detonate them and damage your opponents. Catch lethal damage and ricochet it to other players out of turn using the 5-colour NULL shield. Emptying your hand doesn’t win you the game, it triggers the Final Firewall. Survive one last brutal rotation around the table untouched to secure the network and win.

Attendees can play every one of these award-winning indie titles and meet the creators behind them at PAX Aus 2026, running 9–11 October at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

For tickets and the latest information, visit https://aus.paxsite.com/.